The present invention relates to content search systems for use with computing devices and, more particularly, to search systems for use with mobile computing devices.
Computing networks are commonly used in everyday life. The most ubiquitous example of a common computing network is probably the Internet. Millions of users get online to the Internet and retrieve information over the Internet daily, through the use of Internet browser applications that are able to “visit” Internet sites (collectively referred to as the World Wide Web). Most users access the World Wide Web through desktop or laptop computing devices through either wired or wireless network connections. A similar network is available to users with mobile platforms, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Web-enabled mobile telephones, who generally gain access to the Internet through a wireless connection.
One common network activity is to search for Internet sites that have content of interest. Internet sites are collections of “pages” that can be reviewed with appropriate browsers. Search queries can be submitted and pages that are relevant to the search query terms can be returned to a user's browser for viewing. The returned search results comprise a collection of links to pages of relevance to the search query.
Mobile search, however, is different from a typical Web search or Enterprise search. Mobile searches are typically requested by users who subscribe to a mobile Internet or mobile data access service in addition to a mobile (cellular) telephone service. Internet or mobile data access service in addition to a mobile (cellular) telephone service. Mobile subscribers are not typically performing searches as part of a research task, as is common with a Web search. Moreover, mobile subscribers are typically not searching for specific documents, as is common with Enterprise search (such as with document management systems). Instead, mobile subscribers are typically searching for mobile-centric merchandise, such as ringtones, or they are searching for small summaries of information, such as the latest news, sports score, weather, retail product price comparison or traffic report, or they are searching for services, such as a restaurant, laundry, or vehicle service stations. Some of these searches might also be location-sensitive, with the goal to find the “nearest” search result to the present physical location of the user (e.g., “nearest gasoline station”). In this discussion, “mobile” will be understood to refer to a wide range of mobile computing devices, including “smart” cell telephones, web-enabled telephones, Web-enabled PDAs, and the like, although such devices will be collectively referred to as mobile handsets and will collectively be described in the context of mobile handsets.
Mobile search and PC-based search systems also differ due to the significant user interface limitations on mobile handsets. With rare exceptions, a PC includes a keyboard and 15 inch or larger monitor. A common mobile handset includes only a 12-key keypad, 5-way navigation control, and a 2-inch or 3-inch display. These limitations shorten the average length of search queries for mobile and greatly limit the amount of information which can be conveniently viewed by the searcher.
Furthermore, mobile handsets have on average far less computing power than PC's, far less memory, slower network access, and longer latencies in the communications networks. These limitations further hinder the mobile search experience vs. PC-based search.
Due to these and other differences, mobile search is focused far more on providing direct answers to queries than is typical for Web search or Enterprise search. Providing answers, instead of references (i.e., links) to relevant pages that might contain the answers is a much more computationally and algorithmically difficult problem to solve.
It should be apparent that the mobile user search experience would be improved if simpler and more immediately useful search results were returned. The present invention satisfies this need.